July 27, 2008

TechCrunched for Time

Friday evening's annual TechCrunch and August Capital Meet-Up challenged the laws of physics as hundreds of people flocked together onto the deck at the offices of August Capital in Menlo Park to view demos of young companies, meet, mix, drink, nibble and mingle. Standing in long lines to gain entrance, partygoers waited in the heat, generally upbeat, greeted by members of TechCrunch and August Capital as they made their way down the steps barely a half hour after I received my first tweet from a friend making his way to the party.

David Hornik, Partner at August Capital and husband of SFBayStyle cofounder, Pamela Hornik, greeted my husband and I at the door. Once inside, we found people from Sequoia Capital, Facebook, techbeat, Wired, SugarCRM and of course Google. As a veteran of three tech start-ups and with my husband now on his third, we felt right at home. Dire Straits and a house mix played in the background while guests, clad mostly in denim, sampled wine and software - only in Silicon Valley could you ever find a party like this.

Rushing from this party to a dinner party to a show, we regrettably only had a short time to peruse the companies, but as we squeezed our way between booths, talking with David Bell of Helpstream, Dan Yoo of Rhythm New Media, Josh Callaway of kaboodle, and Robert Haines of iDrive (among others, all listed in the pre-event write-up at TechCrunch). Each of these had enticing business models, but with SFBayStyle in mind, I honed in on kaboodle, essentially a social network for fans of online shopping, particularly fashion. (Their tagline: "Shopping is more fun with friends". After our Saks party, I'd add - "and more dangerous!")

Of course you can read the full event story from Michael Arrington. As we were scuttling out to jump on 280 for our next event, someone was joking with Hornik about the queue - still nearly a hundred deep. "You can get to the front of the line with a business plan!" Hornik replied. I'll keep that in mind for next year.

2 Comments

looks fun! definitely lots of interesting new businesses around here. will check out kaboodle - social shopping is always fun... only thing is I still haven't found a good social network for shopaholics...